As more companies warm to the idea of recruiting on Twitter, the world of tweets, at symbols, and hashtags is becoming populated with a new kind of handle: usernames created specifically to lure applicants. And for job seekers, that means opportunity.

Think @HersheyCareers, @JobsatGates (by the Gates Foundation), @GEconnections, and @xboxjobs. Recruiters behind these handles—that's Twitterspeak for username on the social networking site—say interacting there helps them find talented candidates who aren't necessarily looking for a job and makes their company more appealing to applicants who are already in the running for positions. Spin that 180 degrees, and you've got a way for job seekers to connect directly with hiring managers, gain valuable insight about companies they want to work for, and even hear about openings before they're listed on over-crowded job boards.

"It's a fun way to interact that acts as a reminder for both parties that there's a real person in that recruiter role or at the other end of that resume," says Christopher Hoyt, who works on social recruiting strategies for PepsiCo and is one of the voices behind @PepsiCoJOBS. "[Candidates] are looking for confirmation that their resume doesn't just go into a black hole." PepsiCo launched the jobs handle about six months ago, Hoyt says, and it drives more traffic to the company's careers portal than LinkedIn or Facebook.

Many jobs-specific handles are new and have only a few hundred followers. But some organizations have made growing their jobs handle nearly as important as the company's main Twitter handle. Take Twitter itself: @JoinTheFlock, which launched in early 2010, has more than 94,000 followers, an impressive number by Twitter standards. (It helps, of course, that Twitter is a sought-after place to work among the tech community.)

More than half of human resources professionals now use social networking tools to source potential job candidates, according to a new poll from the Society for Human Resource Management. That's up from a third in 2008. But the majority of organizations focus recruiting efforts on LinkedIn. Of those who use social media for recruiting, 95 percent use LinkedIn, 58 percent use Facebook, and 42 percent use Twitter, the organization reports.

Recruiting via Twitter is particularly helpful for companies looking for programmers, web designers, and other digital types who hang out online. Likewise, job seekers looking to work in those fields may have more luck connecting with hiring managers via the site than those hunting for positions that don't include a strong online component.

While some companies use a jobs handle simply to announce open positions, others converse with applicants, responding to questions and tweeting about what it's like to work there. These are the handles that are most useful to job seekers, because they often offer insight into company culture and the type of employees the company values, information that smart job hunters take with them to interviews. Interactive jobs handles also provide another avenue for candidates to connect with the person who's actually doing the hiring, which rarely happens through job boards.

"The bottom line for a candidate is this is a place to establish a relationship before they're a candidate," says Jamie Morgan, staffing manager for online services at Microsoft. She helps manage @bingjobs, the recruiting handle for Microsoft's online services division.